Kel­ly Bilodeau, Har­vard Health

If the events of the past year have left you feel­ing emo­tion­al­ly de­flat­ed, you’re not alone. Cheer has been in short sup­ply dur­ing the pan­dem­ic, and you may be in se­ri­ous need of a mood boost. Yet while this slice of time may have been un­usu­al­ly stress­ful, peo­ple of­ten strug­gle to find hap­pi­ness even in nor­mal times. Why is it some­times hard to be hap­py? And is there a way to help peo­ple im­prove their mood and life out­look?

As it turns out, the an­swer to the sec­ond ques­tion is yes. You can do a lot to im­prove the qual­i­ty of your dai­ly life and feel more ful­filled.

Test out this recipe for im­proved hap­pi­ness, which in­cludes a mix of three phys­i­cal and emo­tion­al strate­gies. Try each of these op­tions for a week. As­sess whether one or more of these pos­i­tive steps in­creased your hap­pi­ness — and keep do­ing it!

Get out and get ac­tive

Fresh air and ex­er­cise - a pow­er­ful mood-lift­ing com­bi­na­tion. En­sure you’re vac­ci­nat­ed against COVID-19 and take the op­por­tu­ni­ty to get out­side and get mov­ing. Reg­u­lar ex­er­cise can help to im­prove both your health and your mood. Aer­o­bic ac­tiv­i­ty like walk­ing, bik­ing, or run­ning re­leas­es mood-boost­ing hor­mones that can re­duce stress and con­fer a sense of well-be­ing.

Al­so, when your mus­cles con­tract in a repet­i­tive pat­tern, as they do when you are walk­ing, swim­ming, or do­ing ac­tiv­i­ties such as yo­ga, it bumps up lev­els of a brain chem­i­cal called SERO­TONIN, which is tar­get­ed by many an­ti­de­pres­sants. High­er lev­els of sero­tonin are as­so­ci­at­ed with bet­ter mood. In fact, one study found that just 90 min­utes a week of ac­tiv­i­ty pro­vid­ed mood im­prove­ments sim­i­lar to an an­ti­de­pres­sant. When com­bined with med­ica­tion, ex­er­cise can even help mood dis­or­ders that have been re­sis­tant to oth­er treat­ments.

How much move­ment should you strive for?

Re­search shows that ide­al­ly you should try for at least 30 min­utes of mod­er­ate-in­ten­si­ty ex­er­cise five days a week, or a vig­or­ous 20 min­utes three times a week. But if you can’t do that much, re­mem­ber that some is al­ways bet­ter than none. Even a quick 10-to-15-minute walk can el­e­vate your mood, at least in the short term.

Lim­it your de­ci­sions

It may sound like a dream to have end­less op­tions, but in truth hav­ing lots of choic­es can gen­er­ate more wor­ry. Hap­pi­ness does de­pend part­ly up­on choic­es — af­ter all, it would be high­ly stress­ful not to have any con­trol over your life. How­ev­er, re­search has found that peo­ple giv­en more op­tions have more op­por­tu­ni­ty for re­gret. Do you wish you’d cho­sen a dif­fer­ent in­sur­ance car­ri­er, out­fit, cell phone plan, dessert? Would an­oth­er se­lec­tion have been bet­ter? This is why peo­ple who run med­i­ta­tion or spir­i­tu­al re­treats of­ten lim­it se­lec­tions. Not hav­ing to make nu­mer­ous de­ci­sions all day long can be free­ing.

Make de­ci­sions wor­ry free

A sim­ple ex­er­cise can help you ease the choice bur­den. De­cide that if a de­ci­sion won’t bring ma­jor con­se­quences, you’ll lim­it the amount of time you give your­self to pick, or you’ll give your­self few­er op­tions. Don’t al­low your­self to sec­ond-guess the de­ci­sion once it’s made. Save the heavy de­lib­er­a­tions for big­ger, more con­se­quen­tial is­sues. How­ev­er, even when mak­ing these choic­es, try to avoid look­ing back.

Ap­pre­ci­ate small dai­ly plea­sures

Lit­tle an­noy­ances can spoil the best day — you mis­place your keys, stub your toe, or en­counter a grouchy cowork­er. But the re­verse is true as well. Stud­ies show that tak­ing the time to ap­pre­ci­ate small, plea­sur­able mo­ments can make you feel hap­pi­er. Fo­cus on small dai­ly events the same way you would big ones like a wed­ding day, the birth of a child, or a re­lax­ing va­ca­tion. Af­ter all, it’s those lit­tle mo­ments that make up most of your life.

Savour time spent gar­den­ing (yes, pot­ted plants count) or sit­ting in a sun­ny win­dow with a cup of tea; laugh with fam­i­ly mem­bers over a good meal; or set­tle in with a good book. Al­so, cel­e­brate tiny mile­stones and achieve­ments, a project well done, or a dai­ly goal met.

Make a con­scious ef­fort to pause and en­joy small plea­sures like these every day and you will find your­self fo­cus­ing on be­ing blessed in­stead of be­ing stressed.